WASHINGTON — A segment on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” about the Washington Redskins name sparked plenty of controversy — even before it aired.
A segment that aired on the Comedy Central show Thursday night featured four Redskins fans defending the controversial team name amid a flurry of increased criticism. However, what the fans didn’t know was that they would be confronted by D.C.-area Native American activists who opposed the team name.
The die-hard fans, who — as Stewart pointed out before the segment aired — had agreed to participate in the segment filmed Sept. 13, were upset about the encounter. One fan told The Washington Post she left in tears and felt so threatened that she later called the police.
The show’s producers decided not to air the confrontation between supporters and opponents of the team name. Correspondent Jason Jones instead went for laughs by comparing the views of fans and owner Dan Snyder to those of the activists.
The piece opened with a clip of Snyder saying the name “represents honors, it represents pride, it represents respect.”
“It’s honoring what?” one of the members of the Native American panel asked.
“It’s a name that impairs, disables, disenfranchises our population,” another Native American panelist said.
The fans said the name is part of the team’s tradition.
“It would be tough [to lose the name], it would be like losing a family member,” one fan said.
The piece went on to source the Post’s reporting of the fans’ frustrations.
The Post says the fans were told they would not be engaging with Native Americans.
“They told us they were going to have a fan panel, and, at some other time, they were going to do a panel with Native Americans,” one of the fans, Brian Dortch said to The Post. “So I said back, ‘Just to clarify, specifically, we’re not doing a cross-panel discussion right?’ The producer said, ‘Yeah, right. That would be too serious for Comedy Central.'”
It’s the Redskins’ second punch-in-the-gut from Comedy Central this week.
On Wednesday night, the popular Comedy Central show, “South Park” kicked off its 18th season and took aim at the Redskins in the process. The episode included jabs at the ‘Skins and Snyder for defending the team’s name.
Watch the segment:
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